[dawgie2009]

Hi,

Not sure this forum is the most accurate place for this question, if not please let me know which one is.

I'm working with XBMC as a upnp media server. When I'm trying to use search function on the content directory service, I don't seem to get any result. When I call the getSearchCapabilities function, I'm getting SearchCaps.

Can anyone explain if XBMC media server supports the search function, if so, what's the right format for it?

Thanks,
Dawg

[elupus]

We cheat currently to have Windows Media Player work. Pretty much the only thing you can search for is all available video/audio files. We don't even parse the search string. So it's abit unfare that we provide those search caps to everybody. Should probably limit to when the client is WMP.

Any search string containing
* "object.item.audioItem" will give all audio items
* "object.container.album.musicAlbum" will give all audio albums
* "object.container.person.musicArtist" will give all artists
* "object.container.genre.musicGenre" will give all genres
* "object.item.videoItem" will give all video items

[dawgie2009]

Thanks, I'll give it a try.

We cheat currently to have Windows Media Player work. Pretty much the only thing you can search for is all available video/audio files. We don't even parse the search string. So it's abit unfare that we provide those search caps to everybody. Should probably limit to when the client is WMP.

Any search string containing
* "object.item.audioItem" will give all audio items
* "object.container.album.musicAlbum" will give all audio albums
* "object.container.person.musicArtist" will give all artists
* "object.container.genre.musicGenre" will give all genres
* "object.item.videoItem" will give all video items

[DerCarsten]

Hi,

a fairly old thread. Nevertheless, having toyed around with the UPnP Search Action I noticed, that the situation has not changed, right? The containers are all tagged as searchable="0" and trying to invoke a Search Action results in an exception.

Anything I missed or has it been implemented has I just cannot get it to work?

Regards

Carsten

[Montellese]

It's not supported right now and I'm not sure why elupus thought it was. I've added a very basic implementation in my media import work where you can search for all movies, tvshows, seasons, episodes, musicvideos etc but there's no searching support for specific containers and there's no support for any other property than an item's class.

[DerCarsten]

Thanks for you answer, Montellese. Actually, I tried a search with "object.container.album.videoAlbum" in analogy to elupus' post and it works, although it is not much beneficial for a generic search functionality I want to implement.

This trial and error exercise can be quite exhaustive. Is there a doc/post somewhere that outlines the elements of the standard which have (not) been implemented?

Regards

Carsten

[Montellese]

I don't know of any such list. This is a general problem with UPnP implementations. The mandatory set in the specification is pretty small and the rest is optional and there's no good way to know what is implemented and what isn't.

Our ContentDirectory implementation basically supports Browse(), a limited implementation of UpdateObject() and the mandatory state variables.

[DerCarsten]

Thanks Montellese. I guess the Actions GetSearchCapabilities and GetSortCapabilities are not implemented either, right? I'm getting exceptions when I try to obtain the information. Anywhere I can file the suggestion for implementation?

Regards

Carsten

[Montellese]

I know for a fact that the state variables SearchCapabilities and SortCapabilities are set but I'm not 100% sure if GetSearchCapabilities and GetSortCapabilities are implemented. That's one of those things I never understood about UPnP: why do you need getters for state variables that provide the exact same information?

[DerCarsten]

Working with the state variables is fine. It's just so, that the application I'm writing is supposed to be a generic controller and not only for working with Kodi. Having Kodi as my testbed (with live data though) forces me to deal with some exceptions and workarounds, which is a plus, not a minus. Provides more flexibility with anomalies in the end.

Thanks for clarifying, Montellese!

Regards

Carsten

[da-anda]

DerCarsten, if you find a bug or miss a feature in Kodi, feel free to fix and PR them. As Montellese is currently busy with other things, UPNP is sort of unmaintained and you're more then welcome to fix things or implement missing stuff. Thanks.

[DerCarsten]

Hi da-anda, I might consider that at some point once my project is completed.

Regards

Carsten

[steve1977]

Great to see that there are a few folks also interested in a UPNP based search function. And even by some who know how to code ;-)

Has there been any update for v17 or hopes for v18? Thanks!